Staying Alive (1983)

[3]

John Travolta returns under the curious direction of Sylvester Stallone for this sequel to the mega-hit Saturday Night Fever. But whereas Saturday Night Fever was a sincere story about a young man with big dreams and lessons to learn, Staying Alive is just a plodding procedural love-triangle that climaxes in an over-the-top music number of camp proportions. Travolta’s Tony Manero character seems to have forgotten anything he learned in the previous film and the two women at the heart of the story (Cynthia Rhodes and Finola Hughes) are over-simplified depictions of the madonna and the whore. So what else is there?

The camp is all Staying Alive has to offer. And you have to wait over an hour for it to kick in. But once the cast come on-stage to present the film’s bizarre dance spectacle Satan’s Alley, you will behold John Travolta in Bob Mackie’s skimpy outfit, which deteriorates through sweat and furious dance moves to little more than a loincloth with leg warmers. Oh, and a head band. And it’s funny because while Staying Alive commits so many movie crimes — bad script, bad casting, and an over-reliance on montages among them — it’s worst crime of all, this hideous show-stopper, becomes the main reason to check it out.